


it will come back

by eruriotica (minxiebutt)



Series: short writes [9]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drabble Collection, Multi, applicable warnings in notes, pairing in chapter titles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/eruriotica
Summary: "don't let it in with no intention to keep it. jesus christ! don't be kind to it. honey, don't feed it. it will come back."
Relationships: Levi/Mike Zacharias, Levi/Nanaba (Shingeki no Kyojin), Levi/Nanaba/Erwin Smith/Mike Zacharias, Nanaba/Mike Zacharias
Series: short writes [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/692367
Comments: 15
Kudos: 21





	1. the writers (mikeri)

**Author's Note:**

> summary lyrics from hozier.

It’s only after the sun sets that Mike takes his old notebook out onto the balcony of his matchbox flat and settles in at the table. Levi, already hours ahead, doesn’t look up as the vampire takes the seat opposite him.

Between them, a pitcher of water has long lost its ice.

Mike begins to write of a foreign land in a foreign time, outlining a world built partially of his memories, partly of the research he’s spent the daylight hours completing. He remembers only pieces of this era in this place, and he’s chosen it as the setting of his newest novel, wanting to sprinkle in enough true, mundane events to tease any vampires that might pick up his book. There’s a band of stragglers somewhere in Maine, last he heard. He wonders if they’d flip through something with this new name on it and remember what he was called centuries ago when they dined together.

The writers stay out until the beginnings of moonlight blossom over Levi’s skin, making him restless, making him stretch his neck long with a trapped howl.

Mike reaches across the distance between them and brushes his fingertips up up up that long pale throat, illuminated. 

“It’s strong tonight,” Levi murmurs, head still all the way back on those delicate hinges. 

“What do you need?” 

“Meat,” Levi grouses like it hurts, like his teeth want to descend into flesh, like his jaw aches for the pressure of puncturing something living.

Mike finally got that romance published, the one inspired by those nights he shared coffeeshop tables with Levi, drawn in by black nailpolish and eyeliner. He says, “I’ll buy you the best steak in this city.”

It brings him a chuckle out of those lips. Emboldened, Mike widens his grasp, stroking Levi’s throat with his entire palm. 

The werewolf finally lowers his head, bringing Mike’s hand directly into the tender crease where jaw meets neck. He can feel Levi’s rushing blood all throughout his touch. Those magnetic eyes are reflecting light.

Levi wants to sink his teeth into the man before him, and  _ oh, _ how Mike enjoys the feel of Levi’s bruises on his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is part 3: part [1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13790493/chapters/40188380), [2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13790493/chapters/42944159)


	2. the lessons (side levinana, eruri, mikenana)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> newly transcribed, handwritten august 2019

“There’s hope for them yet,” Levi whispers to Erwin over shared lunch. If he detects a pinch of sadness in his husband’s voice, Erwin doesn’t draw it up into the daylight. Instead, he grabs Levi’s hand and gives it a squeeze.

“Lead them to that hope, my beautiful boy,” Erwin encourages.

Mike arrives with Nana in tow during the evening hours usually associated with dinner. Levi takes from his hands the pile of aftercare blankets and gently deposits them on the sofa pushed to the wall of his living room. Nana’s already in her collar, and Erwin spies the way Levi’s eyes linger there before turning away without greeting the submissive. Such is protocol.

It’s a typical night of obedience and playtime-- Levi is, himself, a slave, but there’s something about his teachings that they come from a place of experience that makes him a more popular trainer than any dominant in their area (more popular than even Erwin).

Nanaba is, as Erwin observes from the sidelines, an eager pet who wants to obey. Levi has made it clear to Mike that the reason for Nanaba’s perceived misbehaviour grows from Mike’s lack of consistency and dominance. Without those, she cannot trust him to be firm and stern and absolute in boundaries, rewards, or punishments. But after a dozen sessions and no ‘improvement,’ Levi’s insistence that Mike must earn Nana’s trust falls on deaf ears.

Levi takes his time beating her that night-- watching Mike watch her responses. In his head, the noirette wonders, _does she make these sounds for you?_ But it’s inappropriate for him to feel this way, so he bites down on the desire to let his filthy mouth spew shit. 

There was a scene once, done in privacy when Levi requested a safe space to learn Nana-- learn the parts of her ordinarily hidden, the parts that were necessary for him to know how to care for her. He’d needed to know why she wasn’t improving.

He held her face between his hands and coaxed truth from her mouth until there hung so little left undiscovered between them. He’d rewarded that vulnerability with a spiralling finger inside of her warmth and his lips locked with hers. He’d discovered her hidden desire for affirmation-- her praise kink-- and had bathed her in positive words that made her cum all over his hand.

But Levi hadn’t ever shared that secret knowledge with Mike, or even Erwin, and he thinks maybe… that was the beginning of the end.

Mike scoops his pet up after Levi beats her, but she’s resistant to his touch, and that knocks her into an early, violent drop.

Levi gives them space as Mike tries to figure her out, but she whines Levi’s name and Mike all but drops her immediately. He moves back and watches the way Levi takes his place, able to sooth her with his presence alone.

He shushes her and she calms.

  
  



	3. the foreign bride (ambiguous)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> handwritten october 2019

Sometimes he worries about the little student, whether she’s happy or just pretending to be content so as not to make demands of him. He’d prepared for a different version of her to emerge once she arrived, but she is the same girl he got to know online. She’s quiet and polite and always tries a little too hard to please him. Sometimes it’s difficult for him to make sure her needs are met, because she keeps so much inside. 

Her adaptability frightens him, honestly. She is too silent sometimes.

Should he think himself lucky to find a bride outside of the typical? Her body isn’t the focus of his desire, and likewise she’s not solely drawn to his physical appearance. Relationships should not be built on fickle beauty, so he believes their foundation is strong. She’s easy to please, and he worries that ease is a trap. He wants to put a jewel on her, but she doesn’t wear jewellry. She doesn’t receive love through gifts, but rather through touch. He feels so many of the horror stories surrounding foreign brides have a uniting element of materialism. He doesn’t know if he can purchase anything; she craves only his touch.

“How can I make you happy?” He asks, quietly boiled frustration in her silence and obedience. 

“I know I belong to you,” she says, laying her head against his chest. “So I am happy.”

  
  



	4. the night lectures (blurry erurimikenana)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> premise: modern university setting. levi and mike (dating) attend on athletic scholarships, erwin and nanaba (very _close_ friends) on academics. they're all curious of one another but don't get to develop a new relationship until they share one class altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> handwritten august 2019

“I talked to Nana,” Mike says like he’s still a little disbelieving that it happened, so Erwin turns to him with raised brows. Mike continues, “Not for long though.”

“Did she voluntarily talk to you?” Erwin asks, met with a questioning expression, so he explains, “Did you talk to her first, or…?”

“She came to me,” Mike supplies, breathless at the end.

Erwin leans in, extremely interested now. “And?”

“And?”

“What did she say!”

“She wants to know when my next game was, so I told her, and she said she was thinking about going. I know, I’m shocked, too!”

Erwin tries to wipe the expression away but it’s semi-permanently plastered there. Finally, he’s able to exclaim, “She _really_ likes you, Mike!”

Erwin skates in only ten seconds before the start of lecture, and he catches a glimpse of Levi sitting alone in his usual spot. He thinks that Mike must be late as well, probably due to all the traffic, but when his eyes find Nana, there he finds Mike also, seated on the girl’s opposite side. Erwin takes his usual seat, sandwiching her in.

Mike leans around behind her, his lips a little too intimately close to Erwin’s ear considering they’re on the very front row of the hall, and explains, “She was getting anxious so I sat with her and she calmed down.”

Erwin nods his thanks just as their professor gets everything started.

Nana scoots her body into Erwin’s side and leans her head on his shoulder, listening intently to the lecture.

Movie night at the flat, and Nana’s got her head in Erwin’s lap, Erwin’s hand in her hair. She’s got her eyes half-lidded, moreso listening to the movie than watching it. Her phone keeps chiming in the kitchen. Erwin curiously questions, “Are you going to answer that?”

He knows she heard him, and he allows her enough time to come to an answer, if she has one. She never answers, and after a few minutes, the relentless chimes pave the way for her ringtone, so Erwin escapes from under her weight to see who is so desperate to contact her and why.

It’s Mike.

“Hey, what’s up?” Erwin answers.

“Hey,” Mike greets, sounding relieved. “Is she with you?”

“Yeah, we’re at home,” Erwin offers, leaving it up to Mike to volunteer any information. 

Instead of explaining himself, the athlete proclaims, “I’ll be over in a minute.”

And it really is just a minute, so Mike must’ve been already on his way, something burning his hindtail.

  
  



	5. the loneliness (post-RtS eruri)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> levi waits for rest.

All he wants to do is be up in the clouds; against the backdrop of blue gradient cumulus, soars away a white bird. Among the shadowing pine, a nest of watchfulness. When sight of Erwin falls below the horizon, Levi hunkers down, waiting, waiting, always waiting for the invitation to come and fly again.

He has the words to send this blood-clotting loneliness away, but he has not the will. Because as much of a charity as it would be to cut these ties, to send his talons out in search of gratification, he cannot. It may consume him, these long hours of silence, years without a stray finger along his jaw, without the only man that looks into his eyes and _knows_ him. 

An unfair caveat to this protection that levels around him, these immeasurable, infinite ninety degree tangents between them. That Erwin must go, must go without Levi, must go without Levi and leave lonesome watchfulness in his wake. Below the horizon, he’s awaited.

Mornings of dark blue and fog; burning bright clear skies in the solar noon, gentle swaying moonrises illuminated pink and burgundy by cities too distant for Levi to approach. Nights with secondhand orange glow, pushing out even the stars, surrounding him with the highlights of convenience. If he had the courage to send himself out alone, amongst the trees and liars and thieves, he might take his vow to a head.

Because he knows the smooth, eternal hollows of the bones that once held him, bones which he now holds in this such small pile, twine-wrapped, velvet rolled bundle. Nothing will compare to the peace of resolution, his kept word; laying down his body in the grave, arranging his love around him, and going into that embrace for rest, too, at last.

  
  



	6. The Codes (eruri)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin builds a Levi. Then Levi builds an Erwin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from twitter.

It’s a joke at first. Building a responsive program to give Levi a playful taste of his own medicine. A program that spits out the same filthy language and dark humour. Erwin adds to the code in his spare time, every so often bringing it back to Levi so that the two of them can share a giggle over a computer copying his speech patterns. 

By the time Erwin turns fifty, he can only ever get those beloved biting comments from the program again. 

It’s not healthy but it’s coping; Erwin pours his grief into compiling and running. He gets the code fleshed out with the same sort of snappy sassiness that he spent the last few decades adoring. After spending about the same amount of time locked in laboratories developing robotics systems for the government, Erwin is able to exorcise the code into an android husk within the fiscal year, and then the real work begins. 

It takes three years of his every waking moment, but he doesn’t rest until his project is completed. It’s not the true Levi, but Erwin spends the remainder of his time with the codes that immortalise his love, before his old broken heart gives out in his sleep. 

(His passing is not the silent affair that he believed it would be.)

Levi goes haywire, his circuits exploding with the emotional emulations that he’s been developing (Erwin used to tell him that as sterile as computers are, each have their own unique quirks, and that Levi’s quirks grow exponentially with every new algorithm he learns). The unimaginable absence of Erwin— he shuts himself down for weeks, only running a backup program to catalogue the environmental changes as Erwin’s daughter comes to handle the estate. 

Erwin’s daughter shares the same love for robotics as her father. Levi warms up to Nanaba slowly, because she is very much like Erwin, and very much like himself. That makes sense; Levi was modelled after one of her dads, after all. 

Spring turns to autumn with all the time Levi has spent offline. Nanaba allows him to wander her home, even takes him to work with her. Levi asks, idly, if she could teach him code. 

She downloads the necessary information onto his hard drive. 

Levi knows his creation story. If Erwin made him after Levi, then Levi resolves that he will make an Erwin, too. Without the physical constraints of humanity, Levi compiles and runs on end, every hour of every day for weeks, putting all that his algorithms learned of Erwin into binary and breathing life into the codes. Nanaba procures an android shell and Levi makes himself an Erwin. 

He brings Erwin online and sets up a sharing link, so that their information systems will always be joined, and they’ll always have each other. 

  
  



	7. The Everett Interpretation (eruri)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reincarnation, the many-worlds, and the infinity of a torus. They will always be united.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had the idea of erwin and levi getting unstuck from time and space to be together in the universes where they don't both exist. leaving this half-developed and open ended, so have fun with your ideas about it, I'd love to hear some <3

It’s Levi’s nightly ritual, to go to bed with a tidy and orderly dwelling. He always sleeps easier when there are no chores waiting for him in the morning. He saves the kitchen for last, relishing sinking his hands into the warm water after a long day. When he’s done washing dishes on Sunday, he turns and finds that there’s one last, unfamiliar coffee mug on the counter. He doesn’t remember when he purchased this one, or if it was given to him, but it feels like it belongs with him so he dutifully scrubs it and sets it to dry with everything else. 

Erwin washes his dishes every evening, rarely ever leaving them for morning. Not that he doesn’t sometimes feel the magnetic pull of his bed more strongly than the desire to sleep with a clean kitchen, but he prefers to wake up with an unburdened sink. Tonight, it’s one of those nights when he figures a single mug won’t hurt. One unwashed mug will not cause a catastrophe. He leaves it beside the basin and goes to bed. 

In the morning, he’s forgotten but that hardly matters; no mug is sitting there to remind him. The rumbles of thunder command him to grab his umbrella on the way out but he forgets, thinking for some reason that the forecast promises sunshine through and through.

Levi slips in the middle of the street at rush hour and when he rises, it’s as if a lightswitch has been flipped. Just a heartbeat ago, he was in a crowded crosswalk in the high noon sun and now-- 

_ Now, _ it’s raining buckets and he’s alone except for a few scattered umbrellas and unlucky pedestrians sticking close to the protection offered by storefront awnings--

As soon as Levi takes the next step, he’s basking in the heat of suncooked concrete and he can’t breathe, all the air refusing to enter his lungs. He’s dry. He feels like he’s reaching for someone, like his soul is  _ aching _ just to touch another human being, to  _ hold _ another’s hand. All around him, the city moves on.

Erwin shakes the water from his hair in the building lobby, looking back out into the thunderstorm, glad to be at his destination. A ghostly breeze brushes his hand and he spreads his fingers, welcoming the sensation.

The slips begin like a slick of oil on the floor: Levi loses his footing for only a moment before he regains balance and continues with his stride. A shit sleep schedule, too much work— his excuses for why he forgets things that he should remember or why he insists that certain events happened when no one else remembers.

Maybe he should be more adamant in his complaints-- his doctor simply suggests journaling to help keep his thoughts straight, and to call back if this disorientation persists or worsens, okay thanks so much.

What strange smattering of dreams decide to come, he decides to write down, too. Like the confusing, nearly-terrifying dream of gasping awake, only to be told that he’s died too soon and he must go back-- only to gasp awake in his bed, sheet-twisted limbs soaked in sweat. 

The first journal proves to have inconsistencies that only add to the disorientation. Levi has the undeniable memory of writing a first entry on Wednesday, but on Thursday he opens the journal and every page is blank. In frustration, he scribbles his memory down, wondering how he could produce such a detailed hallucination. On Friday, he makes a third entry, reading back through the two prior and not knowing how to wrap his head around anything. 

It’s a cult. Like, no shit, it’s on the internet and it’s led by some poor girl with a drug addiction, but even still, Levi is drawn to it. It’s inexplicable, why he absentmindedly pulled out his phone and googled this, a cult whose name he’s never even heard of. He closes the mobile browser window, makes a note of the action in his journal, and tries to push it from his mind so that he can focus on the movie he’s watching.

Erwin opts for youtube instead of netflix and quickly finds himself down a rabbit hole of mediocrity. He watches through several different social commentary channels talking about starseeds and alien communication and has a good giggle. But beneath that, he’s curious, his personal vulnerabilities awakening and demanding to feed on this information. 

Flying dreams are supposed to be one of those most common ones, but Levi knows that he’s  _ not  _ dreaming. He  _ is flying, _ soaring over trees, keen eyes tracking for prey that would fit in his deadly talons. He swoops low, on the tail of a hare, and success! Holding his treasure, he rises again with strong beats of his wings, hearing a whistle echoing through the trees, calling him back to the glove. He answers with his piercing cry, his promise to return.

Erwin rolls over in bed, squinting at the digital clock his cell phone offers him. He dreamt of feathers, cleaning feathers from beneath a perch and tending to a fledgling, teaching it how to hunt for him. A too vivid dream that, once he realised he was in fact dreaming, ripped itself away from him. It’s the middle of the night. Flopping back down, he groans when something pokes him in his side. Reaching around, he pulls out a little notebook, the pocket-sized kind meant to be handy for jotting down any little thing. When did he get this? Sleepily, he sets it beside his phone on the nightstand and settles back down into bed. For a moment just as he’s slipping into the stream, he thinks he feels a ghosting warmth wrapping around him from behind. 

When he dreams again, he is flying with machines and wires and swords.

That cult is passing through his city and selling overpriced tickets to a three-day seminar at a Hyatt in the tourist part of town. He secures a spot.

Levi is minding his own business in the back row of a conference room, listening to a speaker detail their journey of discovering their alienness, when an elderly gentleman comes and sits beside him. He bristles, noting silently how many empty seats are closer to the front, but he pauses at his own errant thought.  _ He’s finally here. _ And in the man’s hands: Levi’s journal, the one meant to help him keep his thoughts straight, the one that disappeared when he fell asleep writing in bed one night. His name in sharpie on the front.

“I’m glad I could find you,” the elderly man whispers. He’s crowned in white and Levi is absolutely sure that he’s never seen him in his life, but there’s a familiarity that keeps him from becoming afraid. Something tells him that he can trust this man, though he doesn’t understand why.

“Do I know you?” Levi asks anyway. 

“Not yet,” the man answers, solemn, wistful. “Not in this life.”

Levi looks around but it seems all the attention on the room evades himself and the man. Rising, he doesn’t bother to beckon. That deep part of himself that tells him to trust this man now tells him that the man will follow.

Out in the noisy corridor, he turns, looking up at the old man. There’s a name on the tip of his tongue, and he doesn’t get it, but he feels his mouth forming around, “Erwin?”

Erwin smiles down at him, offering the journal back. Taking it, Levi flips through. The pages have yellowed with age but there’s still only a month’s worth of entries, just like when he lost it.

“How long have you had this?” Levi can’t help but ask. He can see where moisture has gotten to the pages, where his ink has bled. 

Erwin asks in response, “How about we go somewhere private?”

Near midnight, Levi allows himself to be pulled into a slow waltz, Erwin’s hand on his waist. There’s no part of his encounter with this man that he understands, or why it all feels like they belong together. Why he trusts that Erwin understands Levi’s strange experiences, strange memories, strange dreams. Why he understands Erwin’s same stranges.

“I’ve unstuck from time,” Erwin says, warm on Levi’s forehead. “I will be grateful when my world comes back around.”

“The torus,” Levi reiterates from earlier.

“All of infinity wrapped in a loop,” Erwin agrees. “That’s how it can exist. Time will eventually come and collect me.”

“And you ended up here.” Levi looks up.

Erwin smiles and it’s so familiar, as if Levi’s been looking at this face his entire life. “You and I are split from the same soul. We will always skip across the many worlds, like stones on a pond, and be united.”

Erwin rests his cheek on the top of Levi’s head. Their poor excuse of a waltz has brought them to a standstill embrace. This stranger feels like Levi’s most intimate friend, like a lover, like home. “We have been together in many lives, and will be together in many more.”

“All those slips,” Levi murmurs. “I was crossing into a different worlds.”

“We pull each other closer, Levi. Our soul wants to be whole.”

What should spark fright within Levi feels instead like the most glorious revelation. He half-steps closer to Erwin and lays his head against his chest just to hear their hearts in sync.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because i love to suffer and also because of physics


	8. the summer (erwin, mike, side eruri)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin has an interesting host for his study abroad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’ve been letting this stagnate in my drafts for two months so have it a little underdeveloped. i’ll try to come back to it with a part 2.

“Did you look up your host yet?” Levi asks while their group waits impatiently at the baggage carousel. 

“No yet,” Erwin responds, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I tried before we left but I got weird results.”

“Weird?” Levi asks, leaning in to look at Erwin’s phone as he types the name into the search engine.

“Like this,” Erwin says, gesturing to the list of inexplicable results, including wiki pages and a variety of old video links.

“Try the name plus this city,” Levi suggests, but even when he does that, the first hit takes him to a verified twitter with twenty-thousand followers. Beside Erwin, Levi shifts his weight. “Huh. Do you think the guy’s using a fake name?”

“I mean…” Erwin scrolls rapidly through the tweets without reading them. This can’t be correct-- hosts are usually boring locals but this bio says  _ american transplant _ . “The program would’ve vetted all the host families, right? So it can’t be fake.”

“You’ve got the address, I’ll take the cab over with you just in case you got assigned to a psychopath.” Levi scans the carousel again and then steps forward, lifting his suitcase from the conveyor and setting it neatly on its wheels. All around them, their peers are doing the same, and Erwin has to wait until almost last for his bag to appear. When they’ve got a little more privacy, Levi muses, “You could always squeeze into my bed at the resident hall.”

The cab ride drops Erwin off on the complete other end of town from the institute where he needs to show his face every afternoon for lectures. He and Levi had first ridden the provided chartered bus from the airport over to the dormitories so that Levi could stake a claim on a good bed, and then they’d bypassed breakfast in favour of finding out whether Erwin’s gotten assigned to a psychopath or not. Just his luck-- not only had he been one of the select few that needed to procure accommodations off campus, but now he’s half-convinced that his host is going to cut him up and keep him in a freezer. 

On the building stoop, Levi studies the names and buzzes for  _ M. Zacharius. _ There’s several long moments before the door unlocks without the mysterious man confirming their identities. Levi and Erwin look at one another.

Up the stairs, and then up a few more, Erwin knocks politely on the sturdy, black-painted door. Again, a long wait, and then he’s greeted by a man even taller than himself-- a highly unusual occurrence ever since his growth spurt senior year of high school. Mike Zacharias looks something like a mountain man, a huge bushy beard and long hair braided back, probably long enough to sit on. It’s actually a little impressive— it must’ve taken many years to get it to that length. It’s also undeniable— this is the same man from twitter. 

Erwin’s well-bred manners save him, and he introduces himself on autopilot, only remembering Levi beside him when Mike Zacharias looks over. 

“And this is Levi, one of my friends,” he says, a little lamely. 

“Nice to meet you,” is all the response the students get.

“I’m just helping,” Levi explains. He turns to Erwin and lightly smacks his arm. “I’ll see you this afternoon, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Erwin agrees, hands nervous wringing the handle of his bag. “Bye.”

Levi is slow to leave, waiting until Erwin disappears over the threshold before presumably heading back to campus. With the door shut, Erwin turns to face Mike Zacharius. 

“Well, uh,” the man drawls. “Lemme show ya ‘round, then?”

“I see you’re not dead,” Levi snarkily greets. Erwin tosses his bag down on the table and throws his body into the seat. The jetlag is really making itself known, moreso with the long transit across the city. The gentle rocking of the trains had Erwin dozing off the whole way over.

“Not dead.” Erwin’s sort of feeling silly for even thinking of Mike as a potentially psychopath. The man is solitary, sure, but in a shy way, not an antisocial way, the proper definition of antisocial and all of its uncaring attributes. He’d shown Erwin around his two-story flat and explained that the upstairs portion, which is actually a finished attic, would be off-limits as Mike’s instruments populate the space.

He’d left Erwin to a little second bedroom to rest from travelling, but in all honesty, Erwin had laid on the bed and returned to that same twitter account, gorging himself on information. At one point, he’d googled the man again and read an article just a few years old—  _ the former child star penning all your fave summer hits. _

Erwin had dug his headphones out of his laptop bag and watched old footage of a bygone multi-billion-dollar boy band, a young Mike Zacharias at half his current height with big round cheeks singing alto. 

There’d even been updated photos in the article, and upon reading it, the familiarity of the setting came from the fact that it was at the very apartment Mike still resides. One impressive photo, a ‘gritty’ high-contrast black-and-white, showed Mike standing in the doorway to the stairs, leaning against the jamb with his head pillowed by his right arm tossed elegantly over his head, showing off a triceps tattoo of paw prints. The article had listed some examples of the songs written by Mike, and Erwin was a little shocked to recognise all of them. 

A few google rabbit holes revealed to him the true scope of Mike’s songwriting, some quietly won awards unannounced so as not to overshadow the performing artists. 

So as Erwin is sitting with Levi now, he’s convinced that Mike Zacharias is the music industry’s best kept secret. 

“He’s legit famous,” Erwin eventually says, after sharing all of his findings. 

Beside him, Levi’s on his phone, vetting some of those same facts, wanting to see for himself. The only acknowledgement Erwin gets before lecture begins is a quiet, disbelieving, “Oh, shit, he is.”

“Hey, kid,” Mike calls through the apartment late that night, near midnight. “Kid. Erwin.”

Erwin’s body is still working on home time, so he’s a high wire, fitfully contemplating brewing some of the tea Mike graciously offered for consumption. He’s not quite yet comfortable in this space. It doesn’t feel like he lives here yet. Instead of shouting back, Erwin follows the sound of Mike, finding him at the front door. 

“I’m going out,” Mike says, pulling on a denim jacket. “Want anything?”

“Actually, I’ll go with you.”

“You sure? It’s a school night.”

“I’m not used to the time yet,” Erwin explains. He’s not even in pajamas yet, all he has to do is put on his jacket and shoes, and then they’re off. 

What starts as tagging along quickly turns into a habit; Erwin won’t admit it readily, but hanging around Mike really isn’t so bad. The guy is older than him but not really his father’s age— maybe kinda like a much-older-brother. But Erwin isn’t going to admit that hanging around Mike isn’t so bad because that means he’d eventually have to admit that he’s developing a crush on Mike. 

Not an outright, infatuated crush. Levi takes up the majority of those types of emotions. With Mike, there’s admiration and a smidge of desire to get to know him on a personal level. So Erwin tries to slyly sidle in closer to the musician. 

It humours Levi, apparently, and he teases Erwin every morning in the cafeteria at the university. 


	9. the trucker (mikenana)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanaba wants to get out of her hometown.

The truth of the matter is that Nanaba willingly gets into his truck. A twenty-six year old runaway, truly pathetic, and he looks not much older than her and he’s at least employed. But he’s got Christian branding plastered on the cab and he’s wearing a rosary and he ushers her in, not wanting to leave her on the side of the road like this. 

She gets willingly in his truck and tells him, “If you get me out of this hell hole, you can do whatever you want to me.” And her cheeks are burning the whole time but she will feel so much more shame if she looks back on her life in fifteen years and feels nothing but regret. 

The trucker considers her and lets her in, telling her to stow her backpack in the sleeper. He doesn’t offer her water or words or anything; she doesn’t need it anyway, curling into herself in the passenger seat and falling into fitful sleep. The hum of his deadly engine lulls her, lullaby to her misery, soothing soothing. 

It’s nightfall when she wakes again. They’re tucked into a truck stop, and he’s sitting in his seat studying a digital map. Nanaba uncurls, sore all over, and climbs out of the truck without speaking. She goes inside the truck stop, needing to pee. On the way out, bladder happy, she browses the travel brochures and the map that lets her know she is standing 200 miles West from where he picked her up; her heart flutters and her stomach quivers with a choked goodbye to the life before. 

After walking for two straight days and barely sleeping, she’s still exhausted in more ways than one. Her brain is sluggish and her body feels like lead. She spends a couple of dollars on a fountain soda and heads back to the truck. It doesn’t feel right to take his bed, regardless of his offer, but she can’t refuse when he offers her a comforter to sleep in the chair for the night. 

The first full day together is awkwardly silent between them. She can tell that her knight in shining armour is accustomed to being alone. Only the radio plays. Mike is rigid in his seat, barely paying her any attention, ignoring her. 

His truck cab has the most minuscule of ‘living spaces’ behind the driver and passenger seats. There’s a fold out table big enough for one person if they sit on the twin mattress. Various cabinets, upon closer inspection, are also very small, holding some neat stacks of clothes, toiletry items, fresh fruits, and personal effects. She’s average height but she can’t even hold her arms out in the space without feeling cramped. 

Mike has a Bible that rests on his pillow on the tiny bed; Nanaba saw him read it first thing in the morning, then sees him read it again when he stops for a break around lunch. She watches him quietly while eating a sandwich, licking mustard from her fingers while he flicks through the scripture. 

He’s kinda… cute. If he decides to kick her out before her destination, or before taking her up on her offer, she’ll be disappointed. 

After lunch, they have another several hours on the road without a stop. It happens slowly that he begins to loosen in her presence, turning her from a hitchhiker and into a helper. At his inquiry, she handles maps and navigation through a city highway rerouted by road construction, becomes another pair of hands so he can focus on the road. 

“Hand me another apple,” he says. When she offers it to him, he passes his fingers up her cupped hand before lifting the fruit directly to his mouth. 

They fuck that night for the first time; a vicious twisting of limbs, he demands her submission and she gives it willingly, allowing him to push and pull her body to fit his desires. On her hands and knees, on her back, riding him— he exhausts her into a sore puddle. 

Following that, their connection widens without impediment. He finds out about her and she finds out about him and the miles tally up, up, up. 

He’s her age and been sober only as long as he’s been trucking. Mike was a brawler with an alcohol problem, or maybe an alcoholic with a brawling problem, but regardless, this job keeps him out of trouble. 

Sex is shy at first but within the next week, they’re becoming well acquainted with one another’s bodies. So comfortable, in fact, that they share the bed and share the shower at truck stops, and never pass up an opportunity for coupling. First thing in the morning with sand still in the corners of her eyes, and she’ll roll over, toss her leg over his hips, and sink down on his morning erection. Or he will wake her with his fingers and mouth before stuffing his cock inside her. 

Leaving home, she hadn’t imagined her life twisting into this. 

He may take her to cowboy churches and make her pray, and he may wear that rosary, but he’s a depraved man. Breakfast in the scarlet mountains of southern Utah, dinner in San Diego, and then she gets to sit on his fat cock all night long while he squeezes her flesh in his big hands. True to her word, she lets him do whatever he wants to her. 

That’s how she finds herself in a hotel room in Florida, her hands bound at the small of her back, a blindfold secure over her eyes, on her knees but her face pressed into pillows softer than she’s slept on in a month. She’s keeping in whimpers and Mike keeps swinging his arm, testing out a trusty flogger on her rump, finally able to indulge in his kinks now that they’ve escaped the confines of the cab for a night. When they get back on the road tomorrow, she’ll be sorrier than she feels right now; when the lust is sated and all she has are welts stinging with every rumble of the eighteen enormous tires, of yes, she’ll be quite sorry. 

The next day, he starts heading up the east coast and continues his indulgence, having her blindfolded and bound on the bed in the back of the cab. He lets her out once to pee at a rest stop, but other than that, she spends the day as a fucktoy every time he stops for a break. It’s as exhilarating as it is humiliating, to think of herself as such, but isn’t that how she’s spent the last few weeks? 


	10. the gods (mikenana)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gods promised Mike a wife with snowy hair; he travels from tribe to tribe until he finds Nanaba.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was gonna be A/B/O if i continued it but then it fizzled out so nevermind i guess

When the Alphas come through the forest, Nanaba is off at the creek gathering up the meager nets. She hears shouting and ignores it until a group of children comes running, tugging on her skirts and telling her that she must come back immediately.

She crests the hill and sees the commotion at once, the children who went to fetch her having stayed at the creek with the nets. Whenever visitors come through, the negotiations make everyone tense, and that tension makes the children apprehensive; it’s best if the little ones stay out from under foot. 

As soon as her mother catches sight of her, she calls her name loudly. Nanaba freezes, keenly aware of her messy appearance as she’s dragged right into the heart of the gathering. Upon seeing her, the crowd parts, suddenly silent.

“My daughter is the girl with snow hair that you seek,” her father proclaims proudly, holding his hands toward Nanaba. It’s true, she’s the odd one out in a tribe of red hair, and her mother has always promised her that it is for a good reason. Apparently, that good reason has come. She looks from him and to the alphas.

They’re big. Bigger than any of the men in her tribe. They must come from lands of abundance, just like the rumours promise. And if they’re here seeking a girl with snow hair-- she prays silently to her gods, asking that these Alphas accept her and take her back to that land. 

One of the Alphas steps forward, layered with furs and woven fabrics. She can see embroidery, a rare indulgence, decorating his coat. He looks her up and down, then back to her father, smiling and speaking in a tongue she cannot understand. But whatever the Alpha says, it brings a loud cheer from her father.

The Alphas and her father disappear into the tribe king’s dwelling and night falls before any of them emerge again. There’s no hostility-- discussions must’ve gone well. Nanaba’s father inspires a cheer and the whole village finds reason to celebrate.

The marriage preparations begin. Her family receives furs on the first day, finely polished tools on the second, and on the third day, several wooly sheep, one of which is butchered and cooked. That same night, the marriage is performed. 

There’s a feast for the whole community, and as the fire begins to wane, children are tucked into the beds while mothers and fathers sit around the flame, delighting in good fortune. The Alpha, her new husband, takes her hands and leads her to his tent on the outskirts of the village. His own tribesmen stay behind around the fire. 

He leads her in.

They don’t speak the same language. So far in the night, he’s shown his affection with soft glances and thoughtful hands, careful touches. He hasn’t groped her or treated her like property; and now even in the privacy of their marriage bed, those soft touches continue. He lays her down in his furs and spreads her open for him. When it’s done and she can feel his seed oozing out between her thighs, he rolls over and embraces her, pulling her close to him. She couldn’t get up even if she tried. 

They only stay for two days before packing up and setting off on the journey to his lands. Nanaba’s mother sends her off with a few precious valuables, mostly garments and linens, things she will need for children. Fear underlies their final interaction; her mother cautions her to come home if anything happens. Nanaba knows the way. 

  
  



	11. the sofa (mikeri)

Levi comes home late, even for a Friday night. But he doesn’t have to worry about doing anything— Mike already texted him earlier and told him that as soon as he comes home, he’s to take a shower and relax on the sofa, and Levi is nothing if not a good boy. 

There’s the aroma of dinner in the air, and Levi sinks down onto the sofa in the living room, pulling the blanket off the back and wrapping it around himself. The hot shower has loosened him, relaxed him, making him sleepy with his exhaustion.

He can hear Mike in the kitchen, bare feet on the tiles, a spatula in a skillet, and sizzling. Levi allows his mind to wander as the sounds and smells of dinner preparation fill his head, his thoughts fizzling out like water droplets in hot oil. 

Mike gently wakes him sometime later and gives him a plate with dinner, joining him to eat on the sofa instead of making Levi get up to eat at the table. When they’re done, Mike takes the plates back but he quickly returns, helping Levi to sit up so that he can wedge behind him like a massive, warm pillow. Levi pliantly allows himself to be maneuvered until they’re comfortable, contentedly remaining deadweight in Mike’s hands. 

Closing his eyes, Levi burrows down into his love’s bosom, blinding himself with soft cotton and strong muscles. This is the embrace he needs after a tough day; his senses surrounded and filled only with Mike, smelling only him, hearing only his steady heartbeat. Latching onto that predictable rhythm, Levi lets go off all his problems and rests. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. i sometimes [tweet](https://twitter.com/minxiebutt) too


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